Before Philadelphia had a WNBA franchise, it had the Rage. Their former players are celebrating a full-circle moment.

Last year, Amy Mallon walked into a bar near Rittenhouse Square when she saw something familiar. The bar, Stir Lounge, was hosting a WNBA watch party and was full of Philadelphia Rage paraphernalia. Fans brought posters for her to sign; some were wearing jerseys. One was wearing her No. 42 jersey.

Mallon, the coach of the Drexel women’s basketball team, was there to speak about the viability of a WNBA team coming to Philadelphia, but it was clear that her audience knew that the city would embrace one. They had already seen it firsthand.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy,’” Mallon said. “Think about how many years ago that was. It’s pretty cool to know there are still fans who appreciate that.”

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The Rage, who were part of the American Basketball League from 1996 to 1998, played throughout the winter and were competing for attendance with college basketball, the Flyers, and the Sixers. They didn’t draw the biggest crowds. But those who did show up were fiercely loyal, the types of fans who would arrive early and leave late.

So when Mallon heard that pro women’s basketball would be returning to Philadelphia in 2030, she thought to herself, “Hey, that makes sense.” She wasn’t alone. A few of her teammates, like forward Chasity Melvin, thought the same thing.

“[Think about] Allen Iverson. … Philly loves players that love the game and put it all out there on the court, and the WNBA embodies that,” Melvin said. “Our league is small. We don’t take our league for granted.

“They give everything back to the sport that they feel the sport is giving them. That’s why Philly will love it. Because every night, they’re going to see a team that’s fighting to win.”

Technically, the Rage weren’t Philadelphia’s first women’s pro basketball team. That came decades earlier, in 1979, with the Philadelphia Fox, who played in the short-lived Women’s Professional Basketball League. The franchise lasted only 10 games after the league “suspended [team] operations due to insufficient funds.”

The Rage had more time to leave an impression, and they did. Now, 27 years after they played their last game in Philadelphia, they’re celebrating what feels like a full-circle moment.

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“I feel like Philly is primed to take this on,” said former Rage point guard and Allentown native Michelle Marciniak. “I know that they’re ready for this, and they may not have been back then. They just may not have been. So, we can’t worry about back then.

“I’m a general manager [for the University of] Arizona women’s basketball team. I’ve been a national champion, I’ve played in the WNBA, I’ve played in the ABL. I’ve done all this stuff, but I got really excited when I heard that Philly was going to have a team. Because I think now is the time.”

The ABL made its debut in the fall of 1996, the same year the WNBA was founded. It did things a bit differently. The players were paid more and had a 10% ownership stake in the league, so they didn’t have to spend their offseason playing overseas.

There also was some risk involved. The WNBA initially was owned by the NBA, which bankrolled the league and brought a degree of stability that the ABL did not have. But the ABL did showcase a lot of talent, and for Melvin, that was enough to take the leap.

She was hoping to play with two players in particular: Dawn Staley, who began her ABL career with the Rage in 1996, and Teresa Edwards, who played for the Rage in 1998. Melvin was drafted by Philadelphia as the No. 2 overall pick out of N.C. State in 1998, but by that point, Staley had already switched leagues.

Even with Staley gone, Melvin could tell that the Rage commanded a sense of respect in the Philadelphia community. Edwards was a three-time Olympic gold medalist (and won her fourth gold medal in 2000). Power forward Taj McWilliams-Franklin frequently was at the top of league leaderboards in rebounds, blocks, and steals, and went on to win two championships in the WNBA.

The Rage’s first coach, Lisa Boyer, became the first woman to coach in the NBA, in 2001 as an assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers. And the team’s second coach, Anne Donovan, had an illustrious playing career of her own, one that landed her in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Donovan was so well-respected that she began to coordinate pickup games for her players with then-76ers assistant coach Maurice Cheeks.

“We used to go play with all those guys from the 76ers,” Melvin said. “I can’t remember where we played pickup, but I know Maurice Cheeks was there. He was always the loudest and was kind of coaching us on the court.

“I’ll never forget him and Teresa [Edwards] because I was a rookie. So, they were like, ‘You gotta do this, you gotta do that.’”

The team played its first season in Richmond, Va., in 1996-97 and moved to Philadelphia in 1997-98. The Rage practiced and played games at St. Joseph’s, the Palestra, and the Liacouras Center (then called “The Apollo of Temple”).

Beth Cunningham, a shooting guard for the Rage from 1997 to ’98, had never played in Philly but was aware of its basketball history through her coach at Notre Dame, Muffet McGraw, a St. Josep’s product. Now, she was seeing it with her own eyes.

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“I just remember at the time [we were at Temple], the famous John Chaney was coaching there,” Cunningham said. “I think you got a full glimpse of the traditions of Philly and that area. They took a lot of pride in the people that had come from there.”

She added: “You knew Philly was a place that had turned out a lot of great players and coaches.”

None was as synonymous with the city as Staley, a point guard who grew up in North Philadelphia, starred at Dobbins Tech, and led Virginia to four NCAA Tournaments. She was fierce in every sense of the word, and not just during games.

Cunningham remembers Staley making a competition out of which luggage would roll onto the baggage claim first. Sometimes, she’d hold half-court shot contests and include some of the maintenance workers at the Palestra.

“She’d be like, ‘OK, everybody, let’s each put $5 down, and see who makes the first half-court shot,’” Mallon said.

Marciniak, who had played AAU ball with Staley on the Philadelphia Belles, saw this from an early age.

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“It was like, ‘Don’t mess with me,’” Marciniak said. “She just had this attitude that just commanded presence on the court. It was her court. You were playing [on] her court.”

Despite putting up a strong season in 1996-97 — in which Staley was named to the all-ABL second team and ranked second in the league in assists — the Rage struggled in their first season in Philadelphia.

After going 21-19 in 1996-97, and losing in the finals, they went 13-31 in 1997-98. It was a frustrating year for Staley, who said to the Daily News at the time that the losses were a matter of team chemistry, not a lack of talent.

“Last year, in Richmond, we didn’t get along at all, yet we were winning,” she said in 1998. “Then you come into a situation like this, where we all get along, but we can’t put it together on the court.”

A few months later, Staley left for the WNBA. In 1998-99, the team turned it around and started the season 9-5. But at Christmas, while the players were at home on vacation, they were abruptly told that the league would be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

For many of the players, it was life-altering news. They not only had to find a new job immediately, they also had to figure out how to get out of their leases. Some had families who were depending on their salaries.

What made matters more complicated was that the WNBA limited the amount of ABL players who could sign with its teams during the 1999 season (most teams could add three; expansion teams could add five).

“I was able to get myself back into the WNBA system fairly quickly,” Marciniak said. “But a lot of people were not. They lost their jobs, and that was it. You’re done.”

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Melvin spent the day calling her teammates, asking if the news was real or fake.

“This was before mental health was a thing, but it was probably one of the toughest moments for me, mentally,” she said. “I had just graduated college, gotten my dream job, and then it was taken away less than three months later.”

Melvin went on to play overseas and then in the WNBA from 1999 to 2010. She began her career with the Cleveland Rockers, who folded in 2003, but only after the season was over.

That felt more civil because the team was able to say a proper goodbye. In Philadelphia, it was sudden. People had always questioned the stability of the ABL, but it wasn’t clear that bankruptcy was imminent.

Melvin didn’t realize how much that unceremonious ending impacted Rage fans until she started hearing from them years later.

“I still have people that will send me stuff,” she said. “Once Facebook came along, other social media, they would send me pictures [from my playing career]. They’d say, ‘We remember you when you were with the Philadelphia Rage.’

“I guess for them it was abrupt, too.”

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The former Rage players aren’t bitter, though. If anything, they are excited. Their time in Philadelphia was short-lived, but now, things are different. Social media has helped grow the women’s game. So has a pipeline of fans, who follow their favorite college basketball players as they move on to the WNBA.

There are more resources and more roster spots, and there is still a ton of talent. Decades later, it’s a chance to right a wrong.

“I wish they could start in 2028 and not 2030,” Marciniak said, “because I think they’re champing at the bit.”